Is it necessary, in order to truly combat evil, to become evil yourself?
Let’s start by noting that I am usually very, very forgiving by nature. I like to help people. If somebody understands that they messed something up, I’m all about moving past the error, offering education or suggestions for next time, and encouraging them along the way.
What I have much, much more difficulty with is the people who don’t care to improve, or are actively seeking to cause harm. Trolls, for example–they’re not just trying to wind people up. They’re actively causing harm, and they glory in it, believing that they are somehow above it all, or that the person they persecute “deserves” to suffer for having something as archaic as emotions.
I would gladly rid the world of all of them. But I have the damndest time trying to reconcile this emotive response with the logical understanding that people do change and evolve over time. A troll that I would erase from existence today may be a changed person tomorrow. “May be”… but not especially likely to be. And the longer they are left to infect a community, or society in general, the greater the damage that can result.
I imagine that most people would say that anybody who would wave a magic wand to instantly vaporize hundreds or thousands of people would be, by definition, evil. And therein lies my struggle: I know that change is possible. I believe that change is unlikely. I believe that the harm caused is grievous. I believe that preventing harm is a good thing. But erasing people from existence is… not. And the ends do not justify the means.
I have certainly suffered. I’ve suffered the people who torment because they can get a reaction out of you. I’ve also been the admin, trying to police a community according to its own posted standards, granting a troll a second chance. And been taunted for it, taunted for being weak! And when the community had something like a 55/45 split of people wanting to see the troll removed for justification, I removed the troll–with the other 45% baying for all the admins’ heads for being so intolerant and exclusionary and unaccountable! Stirred up by the troll who cried those crocodile tears, while turning around and taunting and threatening others. Like, issuing physical threats against others, including myself. Nothing provable or actionable, of course, but enough to make people afraid.
There are others who will offer a pleasant, sociable smile in public, but stir up trouble behind your back. Who delight in fomenting a mob to “cancel” whoever they decide to throw an unfounded accusation against. If you fight them, you become the aggressor. If you stand by, you let them poison the community and teach others to do the same. If you try to remove them, they will fight tooth and nail to stay, delighting in being wherever they are told they cannot be.
And my experiences are not the worst. There are so many others who have suffered far, far worse. But even that taste has set me implacably against all the trolls, forever.
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